Top 13 Showcase & Inspiration Sites for Web Designers 2016

Web design revolves around the idea of creating something out of nothing, based on the idea of general design and architecture concepts. Much like programming, where you execute an idea based on the capabilities of the programming language itself, web design is about creating new concepts, new styles, building for the future.

Whether working on a project of our own, or doing a project for a client, we are always working with a new set of ideas and rules for a particular design. Innovation in web design is at an all-time high, though it’s still very easy to get tunnel visioned, and distracted by the vast amounts of rules and regulations that go into good designs.

Those who are feeling a little bit down with their web design inspiration will find that the following sites of web design showcases, website showcases and general sites for designers to share their work on, are going to be of great benefit to learn more about the capabilities of modern web design, the type of websites that win awards and earn community respect, as well as a number of sites that simply inspire new ways of thinking and doing web design.

Perhaps one of the biggest designers resources in the world, Behance stands out with its ability to attract designers of even the most professional levels. Amongst the most popular design categories on Behance you will find graphic design, photography, art design, illustration, web design, concept work, and a number of other categories. Each work that a designer shares can be commented on, voted on, shared amongst your peers, and of course — gained inspiration from. Behance, because of its immense popularity, also provides an opportunity for businesses and startups to hire talent through their platform.

Dribbble is not so different from Behance, especially when it comes to good talent, but Dribbble does focus on designs that are only a work in progress. This creates space to gain ideas for the work you’re doing, as well as invaluable feedback from some of the most experienced designers in the world. Dribbble offers its community members to both look for jobs, and also to look for talent, once again making the process very easy — since both sides are able to see each others work before making any drastic decisions. Getting featured on a site like Dribbble can have an amazing effect on your career.

Material design is starting to pick up the pace, with more and more apps switching over to the fluidness of material design, there are already countless reasons to make the switch. MaterialUp is a fast-growing material design resource that allows designers to share their work and concepts, for designers to share freebies, inspirational tips and designs, as well as a resource for finding the best material design tools and libraries to help you start building material design based apps/websites quicker.

Would you like to have your site rated by design experts? Awwards has grown to become one of the most respected communities in web design awards field. Anyone with a unique design can submit their site for approval to Awwards, and if you’re lucky — your design will be individually rated, and in some cases even featured on the homepage, which will give you (and your design agency) not only exposure and free traffic, but also the self-confidence that we all seek from our work anyway. Great resource to browse when you have time to learn about the things and concepts that work for others, and who knows — you might just find your next idea here.

CSSDA is an international web design and development awards platform that honors and showcases freelance designers, studios and agencies for work that pushes the boundaries of creativity, functionality and usability. The biggest benefit for those who wish to participate is that you’re being exposed in front of thousands of visitors that come from all corners of design, as well as a number of experts who are closely connected with the leading companies in the world, increasing your chances for you as an individual or a group to be picked up for more interesting and sophisticated projects.

siteInspire focuses on listing the most beautiful, most interactive and most insightful designs around the web. Getting listed on this site will require of you to do some original thinking and planning ahead, so if you’re looking for design inspiration, this is the showcasing site you want to visit. Thousands of websites have already been added to the database, and every day there are a few more designs being listed on the front page, this is your one stop solution towards the latest developments in the field of web design, and design in general.

Web design has nothing to do with sitting at your desk by yourself and trying to come up with good ideas, instead, designers are the type of people who work together with each other, and for each other. They look for inspiration and feedback within each others designs, and use that to perfect their own style and design choices. PatternTap is all about sharing designs, design patterns and interesting design snippets that you can incorporate in your own projects and platforms. At the time of writing this, there are more than 5000+ patterns available.

Have you ever had the need to build a landing page? Landing pages are also known as one-page designs, but one-page designs are also used for startups and small businesses who enjoy features like parallax scrolling, and HTML5 interactive functionality. One Page Love lists more than 6000+ unique one-page website designs that will leave you inspired for many more years to come. The design gallery can be sorted by dozens of categories, making it easy to find the type of designs you are looking for, without the extra fuss.

Whether you’re looking for some inspiration on how to build a landing page, launch page, a musicians page, or a landing page for mobile phones — One Page Love lets you tap into a huge database of designs, all of which can be accessed through their website URLs, giving you the real taste of what such designs feel and look like when you’re actually browsing them.

The Media Queries is a simple showcase/inspiration resource that lists sites that rely heavily on CSS3’s media queries, as well as other responsive design features. If you want to learn more about the capabilities of responsive design, this is the one resource you will want to visit time and time again, as each site is deeply enrooted in the latest web design technology.

Are you building a product, a business, perhaps launching a book? Trying to come up with a good landing page can sometimes be a tough cookie to crack, and not because there’s lack of resources around, but because there are so many ways to go about building a landing page that we can sometimes forcefully corner ourselves, and feel like we’re not coming up with any good ideas at all. Land Book tries to solve this problem by listing some of the most amazing startup and landing page designs across the world. Enjoy spending hours researching and looking up how great designs come together.

Admire The Web has been around for the past couple of years, showcasing the very best in design and design inspiration. Each month, at least 20-30 designs are being added to the database, carefully curated to showcase impeccable design, insightful concepts, and great choices of style. All designs enlisted on this site are categorized, making it easy to find design inspiration for the exact category you need it for.

Fonts (typography) are a huge part of good web design, in fact so huge that without good font choices, many of the designs today would look bleak and shallow. Typ is looking to inspire designers by listing sites and projects that use great typography together with great design choices, and they even list the most popular fonts that each site uses. Amazing resource if you ever want to learn more about the way good typography affects design.

Email marketing has become somewhat of a big deal, especially now that most email clients and email platforms are able to handle modern web technology and in turn execute dynamic and interactive features within the email itself. ReallyGoodEmails is all about showcasing the most beautiful and most interactive emails from companies all around the world, and if you feel like you know of one that’s really cool but can’t be found on the site itself, you can always send in a suggestion and they will be happy to add it. Perhaps a chance for you to get some exposure for your own cool email templates.

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Alex is a freelance writer with more than 10 years of experience in design, development, and small business. His work has been featured in publications like Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, TheNextWeb, and others.

Here’s another suggestion you probably don’t know : TopDesignInspiration. It’s a showcase of best web design inspiration. We capture full website page, so you don’t have to move around each website to see the complete page.

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